Field work

We can’t say that the weather isn’t on our side – when not deploying GPS loggers, that is. Another stunner of a spring day and according to the weather man, the West Coast is the warmest place in New Zealand today.

We decided to have a look at Jackson Head’s eastern side. So far, we have been working on the western shores of the peninsula, where the coast faces the open sea. The eastern shores look at Jackson Bay and the alpine ranges on the horizon. It is on this side that almost 40 years ago John Warham from Canterbury University did the first comprehensive study of tawaki breeding behaviour. I’m not sure if anyone has visited those penguin colonies since.

Low tide was conveniently just after lunchtime so that we could walk round the foreshore to look for these penguin colonies. We had no idea where they were located, but penguin calls told us where we had to dive into the bush to find them. I was particularly curious to see if the colonies on this side of Jackson Head also show signs of predator impacts. If anything, I would think that this part of the peninsula is easier to access for stoats and possums.

The vegetation proved to be even nastier than on the western slopes. Besides kiekie that tries to slice open every exposed part of skin with its blade like leaves, the bush is thick with supplejack vines, perfect to get entangled in, unless you’re penguin size of course.

The first small tawaki colony comprised of just four nests that are tucked away in the roots of an old fallen tree. When I say four nests, I actually mean to active nests and two nests that might have been active. In one nest a single male penguin guarded an empty hollow, and one floor up, a pair of tawaki huddled around another empty nest bowl. As neither eggs or chicks were in sight this could mean that they were non-breeders – or that the nest contents were taken by predators. I suspect it’s more the latter.

The further we got towards the point of Jackson Head, signs of undisturbed breeding became more prominent. Eggs that rolled out of nests, dead chicks that rolled out of the nests and died which is normal in crested penguins where usually only the first-born chick survives. And as morbid as that may sound… this is good because it means that no possum or stoat has been around to scavenge – or kill chicks. So it seems, that predators may indeed be a problem for the penguins over on this side as well. But there are tawaki sub-colonies that are not – yet – affected by it.

As the sun started to set on the other side of Jackson Head we made our way back to Jackson Bay. Bottlenose dolphins zoomed past and tawaki started to show up to get back to their nests.

We can’t say that the weather isn’t on our side – when not deploying GPS loggers, that is. Another stunner of a spring day and according to the weather man, the West Coast is the warmest place in New Zealand today.

We decided to have a look at Jackson Head’s eastern side. So far, we have been working on the western shores of the peninsula, where the coast faces the open sea. The eastern shores look at Jackson Bay and the alpine ranges on the horizon. It is on this side that almost 40 years ago John Warham from Canterbury University did the first comprehensive study of tawaki breeding behaviour. I’m not sure if anyone has visited those penguin colonies since.

Low tide was conveniently just after lunchtime so that we could walk round the foreshore to look for these penguin colonies. We had no idea where they were located, but penguin calls told us where we had to dive into the bush to find them. I was particularly curious to see if the colonies on this side of Jackson Head also show signs of predator impacts. If anything, I would think that this part of the peninsula is easier to access for stoats and possums.

The vegetation proved to be even nastier than on the western slopes. Besides kiekie that tries to slice open every exposed part of skin with its blade like leaves, the bush is thick with supplejack vines, perfect to get entangled in, unless you’re penguin size of course.

The first small tawaki colony comprised of just four nests that are tucked away in the roots of an old fallen tree. When I say four nests, I actually mean to active nests and two nests that might have been active. In one nest a single male penguin guarded an empty hollow, and one floor up, a pair of tawaki huddled around another empty nest bowl. As neither eggs or chicks were in sight this could mean that they were non-breeders – or that the nest contents were taken by predators. I suspect it’s more the latter.

The further we got towards the point of Jackson Head, signs of undisturbed breeding became more prominent. Eggs that rolled out of nests, dead chicks that rolled out of the nests and died which is normal in crested penguins where usually only the first-born chick survives. And as morbid as that may sound… this is good because it means that no possum or stoat has been around to scavange – or kill chicks. So it seems, that predators may indeed be a problem for the penguins over on this side as well. But there are tawaki subcolonies that are not – yet – affected by it.

As the sun started to set on the other side of Jackson Head we made our way back to Jackson Bay. Bottlenose dolphins zoomed past and tawaki started to show up to get back to their nests.

As planned we went out late last night to deploy GPS dive loggers on female tawaki. And as forecasted it started pouring down about two hours before we left our research base in Neils Beach. Despite getting wet to the bone, we managed to fit two devices to penguins. Now let’s hope the tape we use to attach the devices holds. Applying it in such wet conditions is always a bit iffy. But I consider this a good start.

Because we returned around 2am we took it easy this morning.

Tonight, high tide is going to be around 9pm. With the current swell that hits the coast this means that we can’t get in or out of the penguin breeding areas between 6pm and midnight. So no logger deployments tonight. This is why we hoped to find any volunteering penguins in the afternoon.

By lunchtime, the weather had cleared up once again – welcome to the West Coast, or indeed, New Zealand. We prepared three more logger packs and headed out to Jackson Head. But, alas, no females anywhere in sight. So no loggers out today.

But on our search for females, we made a worrying discovery. Three of our 30 monitored nests have failed already. In a bad year, that can happen. But firstly all the environmental signals point to this being a good year for the penguins, and secondly the nests were all empty. No trace of eggs or chicks. 50 metres below the ‘apartment building’ we found a penguin egg with obvious bite marks. So either, the egg was scavenged by a possum after it had rolled out of the nest. Or we may have a stoat problem again.

We decided to keep a close eye on what is happening at Jackson Head. So we have abandoned our plan to go to Milford Sound tomorrow and will instead check all breeding area for signs of another stoat invasion.

We arrived at Neils Beach, the small settlement about 5 km from Jackson Head late yesterday after witnessing substantial flooding along the Jackson Bay Road. The weather over here was really bad the past few days. I think our 24 hours delay for our departure was a good call.

Indeed it was, as today the West Coast enjoys beautiful blue skies and sunshine. Perfect conditions to go out and get cracking with our work.

Just after lunch we made our way out to the penguin breeding areas with the intention to deploy a few more nest cameras and to fit the first GPS dive loggers on chick feeding female tawaki. As could be expected, we found mainly male penguins guarding their small chicks or incubating eggs that should hatch very soon. On a couple of nests we found pairs, where the females had returned early to feed their young. Access to these nests was difficult, so that we did not bother these birds to stick devices on the females. Later afternoon, early evening seens most of the females return to feed their chicks, so that that time of the day is much better for what we want to do.

Unfortunately, the tide was not on our side. High tide was at 8pm. This combined with the fact that there was a considerable swell hitting Jackson Head meant that we could not get in or out of the penguin breeding areas between 5pm and 11pm.

So it will be another nightshift for us. We’ll head out around 10.30pm tonight. Hopefully we will manage to bring out three devices. Problem is, that the weather forecast predicts rain for tonight. Hard to imagine when you look at the blue skies that stretch over the West Coast at the moment.

Then again, this is the West Coast. So we better brace ourselves for a wet evening.

Boy, it was a long, cold winter and an even longer wait until – finally! – field work is again upon us. Tawaki have completed their winter migration and are back in their breeding colonies. In fact, breeding is well under way with hatching set to get into full swin in the next week or two. We know this, because we have just completed a first nest search trip to Jackson Head.

Documentation photos for this year’s tawaki nest database.

We marked close to 30 nest for monitoring over the next 12 weeks to determine the fate of eggs and chicks, record breeding success and track adult penguins on their foraging trips to find food for their offspring. The good news is that, so far, there were no obvious signs of stoat predation.

A female tawaki sitting on eggs

As for the timing of the penguins… they seem to run like clockwork this year. We mainly found females incubating eggs, which means the birds have entered the final stage of the egg incubation phase. After laying both adults hang around the eggs for a while before the females leave on 1-2 week long foraging trips. After that it’s the males turn to go on a longer trip and return when chick hatch. From what we saw, this is going to happen in the next week or two.

It was particularly good to see, that the ‘apartment building’ is once again fully occupied by tawaki. Last year, the area was completely devoid of nests. Because of stoats stealing eggs and chicks prior to our arrival as we later learned from camera trap footage. Maybe the Jackson Head tawaki will have a bit of an advantage this season though, as the Department of Conservation this year has installed two traplines along the peninsula in an effort to control stoat numbers. We will see if that helps!

An ‘apartment building’ tawaki so far not bothered by stoats

Patient female in her apartment waiting for her husband to return and eggs to hatch

It was good to be back out in the field after a long winter of reports, analyses, grant applications and other desktop work that is not good for your back (and belly circumference). Nothing beats being out in the bush with the penguins on a warm, sunny, early spring day. Let’s hope we have many dry days like this one in the next weeks. We will move into our research domiciles at Neils Beach and Milford Sound in a couple of weeks when field work will start in earnest!

Ursula Ellenberg trying to make radio contact with Thomas Mattern in the Jackson Head bush

The tawaki moult is in full swing. All of the penguins we fitted with satellite tags have returned to the mainland to grow a brand new coat of feathers. The question we had was whether they would do this in the comfort of their own home (aka ‘nest’). After we found Jackson Head almost devoid of any penguins in February last year, we started to doubt that the birds return to their colonies to moult as it is commonly believed.

Several feather piles indicating the recent presence of moulting tawaki

So last weekend, we headed over to Milford Sound to catch up with our friends at Southern Discoveries, hitched a ride to Harrison Cove and, together with Andrea Faris, dived into the bush to have a look for penguins. It did not take long to find ample signs of moult – feather trails leading to piles of the fluffy stuff. All clear indications that Harrison Cove is indeed a popular hang out for a change of feathers.

A pair of moulting tawaki; a truly sorry, but perfectly normal look for tawaki at this time of the year

Overall we encountered 20 penguins, some holed up with (presumably) their mates in their nesting caves looking rather bedraggled, others in the final stages of shedding the old feathers, but many apparently through the moult entirely and more or less ready to go on yet another long migration.

Almost through! A solitary female tawaki waits for the last of the old feathers to go.

For us this means that we can plan to come back this time next year to deploy trackers on these birds to examine where they travel to get in shape for another tough breeding season.

‘I’m outta here!’ – A male tawaki on the way to the ocean after a completed moult.

So much for ‘once chicks fledge they will not touch try land again for almost a year’. This tawaki chick from Rollers Beach, Stewart Island, obviously had different plans. After its first splash in the big blue, it found itself a nice little rock not far from the cave it hatched in. It then spent the better half of a day perched there preening extensively and enjoying the life in fresh air (as opposed to the ammonia contaminated, dank gas not really qualified to be called ‘air’ inside said cave).

Ultimately, however, high tide forced the young one to get wet again… and start the adventure of its first year at sea.

A recently fledged tawaki chick is raking a break after its first dip

Don’t be fooled by the grey beard; this fellow is only a couple of months old.

The 2016 tawaki breeding season is coming to a close. Along the north-east coast of Stewart Island, where tawaki tend to occupy every nook and cranny, few birds are still patrolling along the coastlines. Soon all of them will head off to fatten up for the annual moult in February. Where they go is still a mystery… but not for much longer. We’re on it.

One of the last few penguin that have yet to depart on their migration

The Tawaki Project field season 2016 is under wraps. At least the part where we crawl through the bush trying to find tawaki nests and recover data loggers from penguin volunteers. That doesn’t mean that there is no fresh data incoming. Because the satellite tags we deployed on tawaki to examine their at-sea movements before the moult will keep on transmitting data until the birds shed their feathers in February.

Gorge River – no penguins breed actually along the river but up the coast from here

Around Gorge River we have probably the highest concentration of tawaki in New Zealand. The birds really seem to like the long stretches of bouldery beaches and the gently sloping forest beyond them. The tangle of bushlawyer, supplejack and kiekie makes for good breeding habitat. Robin Long has conducted several searches in the region over the last few years and has found nest numbers in the order of several hundreds.

One of hundreds of tawaki that call Gorger River their home

And we encountered juvenile tawaki! With short crests, and grey beards they tend to sit around on the beaches or along the penguin highways up into the forest, looking quite unsure as to what they are supposed to do. This is a very good sign for the species, because after the disastrous breeding outcome at Jackson Head due to El Niño last year, one could have expected that none of last year’s chicks made it through the winter migration.

A juvenile tawaki not quite sure about why he’s here and where he’s supposed to be

Over the course of the next weeks we will track the progress of the birds we fitted with satellite tags. It’s nice not to have to wait until we recover the devices to get to the data. Hopefully all of them will return to Gorge River to moult so that we can get the tags back. Otherwise the devices will fall off wherever the penguins decide to gwor some new feathers.

The penguinification of confusion

The rocky shore that is frequented by hundreds of tawaki (except when this image was taken)

This Sunday, we went out to Jackson Head once more to have a look whether the setting of several stoat traps in the last active breeding area Popi’s Plaza made a difference for the surivival of the last few remaining tawaki chicks.

Jackson Head in November 2017 – still lots of adults around

When we left in mid-October there were three chicks large enough to be running around freely but small enough to be taken by stoats. At that stage, two stoats had been trapped in this particular breeding area. The traps remained active for a few weeks after we left under the care of DOC Haast.

The good news is that, yes, all three chicks in Popi’s Plaza are alive and well. They all hang out together under the watchful eye of two adult males. So it seems the trapping did the trick. The problem is, however, that trapping Jackson Head is a logistical nightmare and not really a viable solution for such inaccessible habitat. So we need alternatives…